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Knifemaking

Knifemaking is the building of a knife, which includes the blade, handle and other accouterments. Blades are made by either removing metal from a steel blank via a grinder – known as stock removal – and the forging to shape of hot steel into a blade in the process known as bladesmithing. Other parts, including bolsters, guards, pommels, etc., are needed to complete the finished knife.

In a recent Facebook post, Mike Jeffries of 2 Birds Metal Works asked fellow knifemakers if they had a website, if it was worth the time and money to set up and maintain and how they approached it. He often throws out marketing-related topics for discussion. If you’ve followed any of...

Randy Madan, known as JR on social media, served in the U.S. Marine Corps from 1992 to 1996 as a combat engineer. “I blew things up,” he said, laughing. Now, at 43, he has been a federal correctional worker for 20 years. He always loved and carried knives, but he got...

When Jerry Davis was a baby he was scooting across the floor and his grandmother dubbed him Scooter. He is a third-generation welder and fabricator. His dad made knives as a hobby, and by the time Scooter was a teenager, he, too, was making knives. At 19 he entered the U.S....

“I was born a tinkerer,” Dwayne Horvath of Aku-Strike Knives of Pittstown, New Jersey, related. He was always taking things apart, from his father’s reel-to-reel video recorder to his car. By his own admission he was not great at school, but it was during those moments looking out the window, daydreaming,...

Once upon a time, two little boys were smashing their toy cars with hammers. An errant swing caused a brain injury that left one of them without his hearing. Thirty-four years later the deaf boy grew up to be a man who swings a hammer in the forge. He holds no...

Allan Reid of ARctc Knives, which stands for Allan Reid of Cut Throat Custom Knives, is a part-time maker who currently works as a nurse. He served for six years as a U.S. Army combat medic, achieving the rank of sergeant. In 2005-2006 he deployed on Operation Iraqi Freedom. Most recently, he earned his registered nursing...

Tracy LaRock grew up on a dairy farm and spent every spare moment hunting, trapping and fishing. He served as a mortarman in U.S. Marine Corps from 1990 to 1995, but he didn’t stay out for long. In 1997 he signed on with the Texas Army National Guard, in artillery and...